A look at how the ARM Institute’s Councils and Committees leverage subject matter experts to solve manufacturing’s most impactful challenges.
The manufacturing industry is at an inflection point – U.S. manufacturers must adopt Industry 4.0 technologies to compete with lower-wage nations while navigating a historic workforce gap that could see millions of manufacturing jobs remaining unfilled in the coming years. The only way through this point is through collaboration and aligning to a unified strategy to help manufacturers of all sizes navigate this shift through robotics and workforce development.
From the ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute’s inception in 2017, we realized that the pieces needed to strengthen U.S. manufacturing through robotics existed, but these groups were siloed and unable to collaborate. The ARM Institute membership model enables collaboration between these stakeholders, but there was a need to further align strategic focus areas to inform this collaboration.
Our leadership councils and committees help define this strategy, identify the greatest areas of need, and seek solutions. These groups enable collaboration between businesses that are otherwise considered competitors. For example, we have representatives from both Universal Robots and Yaskawa on our Education and Workforce Development Advisory Committee (EWAC). Council and committee members are nominated and elected by the wider ARM Institute membership consortium and by our internal leadership team.
The Education & Workforce Development Advisory Committee (EWAC) works with the ARM Institute to identify critical areas of need in workforce development. This team directly influenced the creation of RoboticsCareer.org, our national workforce resource. EWAC members defined the skills and competencies needed for robotics careers in manufacturing, aligning these into three primary career pathways: robotics technician, robotics specialist and robotics integrator (https://www.roboticscareer.org/careers). This helps those exploring possible robotics career entry points and workers interested in upskilling to robotics roles in manufacturing. Beyond defining career pathways, the committee also informed key capabilities on RoboticsCareer.org, like personalized job and training matching and our Endorsement Program that recognizes the nation’s most effective training programs for these careers.
Experts from our consortium also drive our technical direction. The Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) serves a variety of purposes, such as giving input into the focus areas addressed through our Technology Project Calls and reviewing proposals received through our project calls. The TAC, in collaboration with the ARM Institute team and our government partners, helps select the most impactful projects for funding. They also identify emerging areas of need and technologies that have implications for the manufacturing industry. This feedback has directly tied into our road-mapping efforts and topics for our Discovery Workshops, such as our artificial intelligence (AI) for robotics workshop (https://arminstitute.org/news/ai-workshops/) and others.
Our Stakeholder Executive Council (SEC) acts as the voice of the ARM Institute membership at-large. This group convenes frequently with our leadership team to discuss the feasibility and potential impact of new ARM Institute initiatives, such as our Robotics Manufacturing Hub (https://www.engineering.com/story/de-risking-robotics-implementation-empowers-small-and-medium-sized-manufacturers) which de-risks robotics technologies for small and medium-sized manufacturers. Most recently, this council has been developing ARM Institute Working Groups as a new method to share best practices around specific topics, such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).
The ARM Institute is driven by member, government, and industry feedback. We exist to solve the toughest issues inhibiting U.S. manufacturing through collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Through our structure as a Manufacturing Innovation Institute—part of the Manufacturing USA Network—we function as a neutral convener and collaborator, bringing the pieces together that are needed to strengthen manufacturing.
